Fix Kit #1/6: The Quiet Fix
Mindstorming with Guy
He said, “Let’s not fix it just yet.” I almost walked out.
My name is Tom Sayer — the Production Manager at InHouse Secure. The one who keeps the plant breathing.
This isn’t a blog about fixing SAP. It’s what happens before the fixing. Before the specs. Before someone decides which flavour of governance gets ignored this time.
I’m the one who’s seen two rollouts crash. Still keeps the line moving with a system that thinks “robotic warehouse” is a polite suggestion. I open the plant at 5:30 a.m. like clockwork. I don’t run meetings. I run production. Which means when the system says “delivered” and the shelf says “empty,” I get the call.
And then Guy turns up.
He walks in. Doesn’t touch the whiteboard. Doesn’t even glance at the Gantt chart someone stuck to the glass like it’s scripture.
Just says:
“Let’s not fix it just yet.”
I almost laugh. Or swear. Or leave. Maybe all three. Because I know what that line means. I’ve heard it before. It’s code for: nothing happens for the next fortnight except meetings, muffins, and metaphors.
I’ve seen SAP rollouts flatline. Twice. Here at HQ, the trauma’s so baked in, you can smell it in the server room. First attempt? Classic WM buckles under the weight of real-life process. Second go? They try to paper over the cracks with custom code and a wing and a prayer. Doesn’t work.
Now it’s Guy. No last name. No pitch deck. No laptop. No lanyard. Just a battered notebook and a face that looks like it’s seen too many go-lives go sideways.
Instead of jumping into another fake sprint, he says:
“We’re starting with conversations.”
Which I hear as: we’re stalling until someone higher up gives me permission to do something real.
I brace for Same Stuff, New Day.
The brief—as I understand it—is clear. Migrate us off the AS/400 antique and onto the SAP ECC template all the other sites have already swallowed. Worked for everyone, or they make you believe it does.
Problem is, we’re not “everyone else.”
We’ve got a robotic warehouse built for storage density, not speed. Sounds clever till you need something urgently and the robot takes the scenic route.
We are forced to introduce a supermarket buffer zone that acts more like a panic room. And a production schedule that changes more often than our WiFi password.
And we’ve got people.
Good people. Survivors. The kind that keep things running with duct tape, goodwill, and the occasional bribe to the forklift driver.
You try telling me to freeze the production plan at noon for the day ahead. Good luck with that.
Enter: Mindstorming
He skips the group meetings. Books one-on-ones. Like a GP doing patient rounds.
No agendas. No slide decks. Just sits with people. Quietly. One by one.
When it’s my turn, he sits across from me in a side office that smells like burnt coffee and marker pens.
Pulls out his phone.
“Hope you don’t mind — I’m recording this.”
I give him a look. The one that says, this isn’t a confession booth, mate.
He nods like he’s heard it before.
“AI will do the transcription,” he says. “Means I can actually listen, not just pretend while I write down buzzwords.”
I shrug. Fair enough.
Still feels odd knowing a bot’s going to have a copy of this. But it means he’ll be listening. For real. So I lean back. And I talk.
What I give him
He doesn’t want the org chart. Doesn’t ask for a swimlane.
He asks:
- What do you do when the system can’t keep up?
- What’s something you shouldn’t be doing—but do anyway?
- When things break, who do you call before logging the ticket?
Then he shuts up.
Doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t steer.
Just listens. Properly. Like he means it.
Something shifts.
Feels less like an interview. More like a pub chat after a shift. Honest. No posturing. No pitch.
I tell him why we don’t follow the plan. Why we don’t trust the robot. Why we load the supermarket like we’re expecting a storm.
We’re not solving anything. But we’re finally seeing something.
The weirdest bit?
He doesn’t react.
No smart replies. No empathetic coaching lines.
Just:
“That helps. Thank you.”
Then he leaves.
No feedback. No idea if what I’ve said is revelatory or just background noise.
Leaves me wondering: Have I just said something obvious? Or something no one else dared say out loud?
What Mindstorming actually does
It doesn’t fix anything. Doesn’t hand me a shiny new roadmap.
But it does something subtler.
It breaks the reflex.
That one where we try to make things sound like they’re working. Where we pretend we fit the template. Where we keep saying “nearly there” while the floor tells a different story.
It doesn’t change the system.
It changes me.
Few days later
I’m walking the floor.
Not because I’m checking. Because something’s nagging at me.
That conversation left a kind of silence. A new one. Not awkward. Just… awake.
So I start watching differently.
Not for errors. For ghosts. For workarounds. For the bits that don’t exist on the blueprint.
And I find them.
Little moves. Extra steps. The logic under the logic.
Stuff that’s kept the site alive.
Not because it was sanctioned. Because it worked.
That’s what Mindstorming does.
Not to collect every flaw. Just enough pause that we start to notice what we stopped seeing.
Next? We find something no one mentioned. Not because they’re hiding it. But because it’s become normal.
P.S. Ever tried explaining your process and realised you left half of it out?
This one’s for you.
Even if the missing bit is five metres up and stashed on a rack with no label.
